Skip To The, Sorry, My Lou
A Geezer’s Notebook, By Jim Foster
I miss girls skipping. Oh, don’t panic, I’m not a pervert, well maybe a bit of one, but so far I’m not on Epstein’s list. I miss girls skipping. Oh, don’t panic, I’m not a pervert, well maybe a bit of one, but so far I’m not on Epstein’s list. If you are an old geezer you know exactly what I am writing about. Back in the 40s and 50s sidewalks were jammed with young girls (and occasionally a boy if he was sure none of the other guys could see him) skipping away to rhymes that were old when Elizabeth the First was playing kissy-kissy with Sir Walter Raleigh. (Yes, it’s true! I have the photographs to prove it. That ‘playing at bowls’ story about what he was doing when the Spanish Armada showed up was total BS. Things were just getting hot and heavy when Walt’s wife walked in. He limped for the rest of his life.)
When we were kids, once the snow melted, the girls hauled out the skipping ropes, hit the streets, and double-dutched for hours on end. Once a person got into the rhythm almost anyone could skip. Of course actually getting that rhythm would have been impossible if he or she didn’t know the songs and there were dozens of them. The hardest part of double-dutch was carving the wooden shoes.
I have forgotten most of the songs. The only one I remember is Fibber McGee and Molly. That was a classic! Bouncy bouncy bally, Fibber McGee and Molly, went to a dance and lost their pants, bouncy bouncy bally.
That was as dirty as songs got in the 40s. We liked to slip a bit of raw sex like that in there even though most of us didn’t have a clue what was supposed to happen once Fibber and Molly lost their pants. I’m 88 and still not sure.
I guess TV and cell phones killed the skipping craze and that is a shame, but the songs have been around forever. Even Shakespeare wrote them. Who out there remembers his sonnet Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, the knotty-pated miscreants, went to a dance and lost their pants, forsooth hey nonny nonny?
Not many apparently.
Skipping was tough for princesses and noble ladies back in the middle ages, what with having to wear hoop skirts, bustles, and powdered hairdos piled a foot and a half on top of their heads. Plus the only ropes they had at the time were the big suckers sailors used to tie up man o’ wars, galleons, and frigates. (A frigate was a sailing ship, not just a rude way of saying ‘to hell with it’.)
Boys felt a bit left out when the girls were skipping; we weren’t exactly welcome, particularly if we didn’t know the songs or our footwork left much to be desired, or we fell down a lot. Skinning our knees on the sidewalk in front of the girl of our dreams could set a romance back decades, especially if we bled on her and were inclined to burst into tears. A mild whimper was okay in public, well reasonably acceptable, but full-blown wailing was frowned upon and was not likely to impress a young lady. Nor was lying on the grass sobbing. In the 40s and 50s, the cure-all for all injuries short of accidental amputation was iodine and a dab or two of that stuff hurt more than the skinning.
So how does a chap impress a young lady if she is a skipping enthusiast and he is at best a klutz and not a very good one at that? By being her trainer, that’s how. We all have heard the axiom, ‘those who can’t do it, teach’ , well that could be you. Nothing turns on a young lady’s romantic desires more than some bozo telling her what to do. Try it at home tonight!
Do you know what sport is also big on skipping? Yes, boxing, not just because it helps develop a boxer’s footwork but also it is very important in his or her physical fitness program. It was not generally known, but for a short while I was Mohammad Ali’s skipping coach. It was during one of our training and instructional sessions I attempted to teach him the classic double-dutch cross-over. Unfortunately he doubled when he should have dutched and he fell down skinning both his knees. I’m sure you read the news article in 1974 about a young Canadian lad being chased across the Rainbow Bridge by an irate hobbling black guy shouting, “When I catch you Foster, you little jerk, I’ll hey nonny nonny your ass.”
(Image Supplied)
